I write primarily about the U.S. public and private retirement system. Trained in economics (1999 PhD from MIT), I serve as the William Karnes Professor of Finance and Director of the Center for Business and Public Policy at the University of Illinois. I am also Associate Director of the Retirement Research Center at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Previously, I served as Senior Economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, as staff to the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, and as a Member of the Social Security Advisory Board. I am also a Trustee for TIAA-CREF, a Fortune 100 financial services firm serving the not-for-profit sector.

What the NRA is Assuming (and Why They are Wrong)

Like millions of Americans, I was deeply shaken by the horrible tragedy that unfolded at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown Connecticut one week ago today. As a father, as an American – simply, as a human being – I was horrified by the thought that anyone could be capable of gunning down innocent and helpless children. My rage toward the killer was outweighed only by the terrible sadness for the children and deep sympathy for their families.

As the hours and days have gone by, however, my raw emotional response has slowly – if not fully successfully – made some room for my inner economist to begin to examine the situation from an analytical perspective.

So let me ask a simple question: “Would America’s children be safer if we had more guns, or fewer guns?”

I would like to assume that, with the exception of a few sociopaths, everyone wants our children to be safer. I do not subscribe to the extremist rhetoric from either side that assumes they are the only ones with the moral high ground and that the “other side” is somehow anti-kids. Rather, I think both sides agree on the goal – to keep our kids safe – but have a very different view of how to get there.

But who is right? Would our children be safer with more guns or fewer guns?

To provide some insight, I would like to adapt a simple model that is used to discuss tax policy (stay with me here!) – the “Laffer curve.” (Click here for information on the Laffer curve). See the small graph in the upper right of this post to see it adapted to thinking about guns.

If there were zero guns available in the U.S., then by definition there would be zero gun-related deaths. Starting from zero, as the number of guns increases, the frequency of gun related deaths would surely rise, at least initially. But it probably would not rise forever.

According to the NRA, in such a world, criminals would be reluctant to commit a crime because they know that they would be putting themselves in grave danger. Or even if they did, an armed good guy would stop them.

What this means is that if gun violence is low at low levels of gun ownership, and also low at high levels of gun ownership, then there must be a horrible “peak” in between where the number of gun-related deaths is at its highest (the peak).

We have over a quarter of a billion guns in the U.S. The question is whether this is above or below the peak. If it is below the peak, then more guns cause more gun-related deaths, and deaths would decline if we had more effective gun control laws. In contrast, if we are above the Peak, then small decreases in the number of guns can actually cause more deaths. Relatedly, if we are above the Peak, then increasing the number of guns can reduce the number of gun-related deaths. This is what the NRA seems to believe.

This is a simplistic model. But it does provide an important insight: theoretically, gun control could make us safer or it could make us less safe. Gun control advocates are implicitly assuming we are to the left of the peak. Gun rights advocates are implicitly assuming we are to the right of the peak.

So, what does the evidence say?

The good news is that it is possible to test this. The bad news is that it is very hard to do it well. One cannot simply assert that “in country X, they have tighter gun control laws and also fewer gun deaths, so therefore fewer guns causes fewer deaths.” To do so would be to ignore countless other factors – cultural, religious, legal, economic, demographic – that might cause country X to have fewer deaths and also cause them to pass more stringent gun control laws.

Fortunately, some economists have written good papers on gun control. (Sadly, other economists have written bad papers on gun control, meaning that they are sloppy, confuse correlation with causation, and therefore should not be used to guide policy debates.)

University of Chicago economist John Lott is the most well-known researcher on the issue. His findings are easily summarized by the name of his book “More guns, less crime.” In other words, Lott believes we are way past the peak and that people would likely be safer if we had fewer restrictions on guns. As is often the case when someone writes something so provocative, Lott’s research has come under attack. A summary of the controversies and criticisms can be found here.

Aside from just attacking Prof. Lott’s work, others have tried to examine this issue on their own. In my opinion, the single best study on this topic was conducted by Prof. Mark Duggan, a Harvard-trained Ph.D. in economics who is now a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His paper, “More Guns, More Crime” was published in one of the most elite peer-reviewed economics journals in the world. He finds that “changes in homicide and gun ownership are significantly positively related” (thus, his title – more guns lead to more crime.) Importantly, he also finds that “this relationship is almost entirely driven by the relationship between lagged changes in gun ownership and current changes in homicide.” This is really important because it is evidence that this correlation comes about because guns lead to more homicides, rather than an increase in homicides leading more people to buy guns.

The Duggan study also specifically examines the Lott study. He agrees that, theoretically, concealed carry laws could increase the likelihood that potential victims could carry a gun, and thus reduce the homicide rate (my simple model above). However, he concludes that he finds “no evidence that counties with above-average rates of gun ownership within CCW states experienced larger declines in crime than low-ownership counties did, suggesting either that gun owners did not increase the frequency with which they carried their guns or that criminals were not being deterred.” In other words, there is no evidence to support the NRA’s view.

I came into this debate over the past week with an open mind. My reading of the evidence, however, suggests that more guns cause more crime, and that concealed carry laws would not reduce crime.

Our nation may still decide not to restrict guns because of the Second Amendment. But if so, let’s at least do it with our eyes open. We should not be pretending that we are helping kids by promoting gun ownership.

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Where does education come into play in this issue? Education is a huge variable in anything, I believe if we educated people about guns there would be less violence. We teach kids about the dangers and responsibilities of alcohol and sex, why not guns?

I also agree that this is a unique and interesting perspective with which I very much agree. I would like to add that the concept is presented generally, but it could also be applied parochially. There is no doubt that with the proliferation of gun-free zones around schools, schools (also shopping malls, churches and many work places that ban firearms even in one’s vehicle) are on the very left side of this curve. We routinely see the results that vaildate Mr Brown’s thesis.

The distinction between causation and correlation is very relevant. It’s possible to look at gun deaths through a kind of public health filter…much like obesity, lung disease or global warming. It’s the pattern

Let me first thank all of you who have commented … This has indeed been a well-informed, respectful discussion even though there are strong disagreements. We need more discourse along these lines.

Let me respond to the quuestion of whether one well trained and armed individual would have changed the outcome at Sandy Hook. My answer – yes. I don’t know exactly how, but I suspect it would have resulted in fewer deaths. But that benefit must also be weighed against the costs. We did not know this was going to happen at Sandy Hook. It could have happened at any one of tens of thousands of schools. So now suppose we have armed individuals at tens of thousands of schools. The odds are high (this is a subjective belief on my part, not a statement of fact) that some number of people would have been killed or injured as a result. The troubled teen who steals the teacher’s gun. The kids that gets hold of it and shoots another kid. It is unclear that if we adopted this policy nationally, it would result in fewer deaths in total. The kids at Sandy Hook might be alive. But whose children might not be? That is what makes these questions so hard …

Well said, Mr. Brown. History – always look to history as it wishes to teach us and prevent us from doing something and failing to consider “the law of unintended consequences.”

If we regulate guns (more than currently), we must acknowledge the reality that some laws will not be followed or enforced.

If we allow teachers and administrators who wish to carry to do so with only certain administrators being notified so as to limit who knows and who does not, one of the benefits of many having a concealed weapon just as the air marshal flies anonymously even as to the crew as I understand it. there is indeed the reality that some will fail properly to follow the rules and the security of the weapon may or will be compromised in some situations.

In other words, regardless of what is done (and the clamor is to do something even if what is done is ineffective or worsens the situation), the NET benefit to our children, to us and to our society may be negligible, if any. It might be much worse. After all, the point is well taken that a majority, if not all, of the recent mass killings are in the “gun free zones.”

Indeed, I do not wish to come across as lacking compassion (which would be inaccurate as I have shed tears for those lost in Connecticut and their families and while I will miss my 6 year old son being with me on Christmas Day as he will be with his mother, I am NOT alone because he was gunned down as is the case for so many families in Connecticut and elsewhere). However, if we created a chart or list showing the loss of life, children only or adults and children, and the cause of that loss of life ranking the causes in order of the number of children who are killed or die and then consider the options to reduce or eliminate such deaths for each cause and the various costs (financial, loss of freedom, impact to other children (such as the enhanced awareness of security and corresponding loss of innocence)), then shouldn’t we try to address whatever is the largest killer or largest cause of injury to our children relative to the ease of reducing or eliminating them? Perhaps auto accidents without drunk drivers, drunk driver caused wrecks, child physical and sexual abuse, child pornography, cancer, head injuries from play without helmets, and other causes. Are we so focused on guns because it is either an agenda or because, like airport security, it will feel better to do SOMETHING than to put gun violence on the list of other injurious and deadly factors and approach them in order of most heinous or most easily erradicated?

At the moment, I favor allowing teachers and staff who wish to do so to be trained and be armed or, perhaps as is the case on military bases and for police, train the staff and teachers and then keep weapons locked up but accessible to those staff and teachers rather than having police or security guards on campus and visible (which makes them easy targets for an intruder and makes elimination of one or two security guards the same as eliminating the entire defensive threat). If there had been weapons in locked cases spread around the school, then those with access and who had been trained would have had a choice as to whether to cower or to go get the weapon and, being trained, take a position and take out the assailant.

No easy answer indeed. The law of unintended consequences. Other causes of death and injury (physical and emotional) to children. Can we really eradicate them all? We should try, I believe, but in some rational approach.

For any person who wishes to engage in a discussion, including this one, about guns and additional regulations or bans of certain weapons or accessories (such as magazines of a certain capacity), please be informed about the underlying subject. To do so, consider reading this article, which came to me via Facebook. I do not know the author. From what I know, this article is accurate in its facts including definitions and explanations: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/